Whether North Korea can be persuaded to abandon its nuclear ambitions and accept US demands for multilateral dialogue depends largely on China, analysts and officials said Thursday.
Asia's only regional meeting where North Korea is a participant wound up Thursday with little progress on the North Korean nuclear issue, but officials said one hopeful sign emerged: China seems more willing to help.
"China is doing much more than before. It's very obvious," said a high-ranking South Korean foreign ministry official dealing with the North Korean issue.
"Before they didn't do very much. They said they didn't have much influence over North Korea, which is a lie," the official who requested anonymity said.
Pyongyang and Washington have been in an eight-month standoff over Washington's charges that Pyongyang was developing nuclear weapons, with the issue threatening peace on the Korean peninsula and Asia.
China's offer
This week on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), China indicated more strongly than before that it was willing to forge talks between the US and North Korea that would include South Korea and Japan -- something that Washington insisted on having and Pyongyang has objected to.
The move, though subtly presented by Beijing, is nonetheless a significant shift in China's position, the official said.
"China realized the danger of North Korea having nuclear weapons is real and China understands the [George W.] Bush administration's strong position, which is totally different from the Clinton administration's position and after Sept. 11 it changed even more," the official said.
Multilateral talks -- rather than bilateral talks between Washington and Pyongyang or trilateral talks that would include China -- are crucial, Washington, Seoul and Tokyo insist.
Avoiding mistakes
The US does not want to repeat the mistake it made in 1994 by striking a two-way agreement with Pyongyang in which the Stalinist regime agreed not to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for fuel aid, the official said.
Washington said it discovered in October Pyongyang had a nuclear program, and stopped further aid.
"When many parties are involved, they can be witnesses to what North Korea says. It will make it a little harder for North Korea to lie," the official said.
Experts say China holds the key to convincing Pyongyang to agree to such a multilateral format, but Beijing has a tough balancing act.
Beijing wants a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, but at the same time does not wish to see improved relations between the Koreas and between North Korea and the US as this would lessen Chinese influence on the Korean Peninsula, according to the experts.
Beijing's desires
"To China, if the US and North Korea can talk amicably, that's not good for China. China doesn't want the two of them to fight too hard, but it doesn't want them not to fight either," said Hong Kong-based China expert Wu Guoguang.
Beijing is cooperating with the US because it stands to gain and has gained a lot, including US willingness not to criticize China's human rights record at the UN Human Rights Commission meeting this year -- which has been an annual major embarrassment for China, said Wu, from the Chinese University.
It's debatable, however, how much influence China has over Pyongyang.
A donor's leverage
China -- the largest donor of fuel and food aid to North Korea -- has a lot of leverage over the North, South Koreans and Americans believe.
In March, Beijing stopped providing fuel to the North for three days, blaming the interruption on a technical problem in a fuel pipeline.
"It was quite a shock to North Korea. We guessed it involved China trying to send some signal to North Korea. Only naive people think it was an accident," the official said.
"Maybe they can have another fuel cut," he said. "Maybe there's some way for China to send a stronger signal thereby changing North Korea's attitude."
Following that incident, Pyongyang agreed to hold trilateral talks with the US and China in April.
But the official warned: "Too much pressure will stimulate North Korea to move in a bad direction. Too little pressure, they will not change at all."
Wu, however, argued China's influence is not as strong as people think, even though it is the "only hope" because its Pyongyang's strongest ally.
"Pyongyang doesn't trust Beijing. It knows Beijing is using its influence with Pyongyang to gain bargaining power with the US. So Pyongyang will use Beijing and the US to increase its bargaining power with both countries," he said.
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